By: anon (anon.delete@this.anon.com), January 31, 2013 6:45 am
Room: Moderated Discussions
Richard Cownie (tich.delete@this.pobox.com) on January 30, 2013 8:34 am wrote:
> David Kanter (dkanter.delete@this.realworldtech.com) on January 29, 2013 11:51 pm wrote:
>
> > Honestly, the trend is away from standard ARM cores. Also, there's a lot of other IP that servers need
> > that isn't in the normal tablet/phone space, like high performance wired networking and PCI-E.
>
> Sure, there's work to do. Just as there was for Intel in the 1990s. But when
> the economic incentive is there - and I think Intel's margins on server cpu's are
> a pretty fat target - then many companies will do what it takes to solve those
> problems.
>
> This is exactly what Intel went through in the RISC vs x86 battle. x86 didn't have
> decent server software; but once they had good enough cheap hardware, Linux and
> WindowsNT came along to fix that. Pentium didn't have a sensible MP bus;
> Intel spent the money to develop the P6 bus for cheap/easy 4-way servers.
> x86 didn't have RAS features; Intel added them. Intel didn't have cores as good as
> DEC or HP; they hired good designers, borrowed a few ideas, and got the much
> more competitive P6.
>
> To make the situation even more worrying for Intel, it seems that PC sales - the
> source of their economic power - are now falling (8% YoY in the last Q IIRC)
> while the ARM business is booming. They may not be able to maintain a huge lead
> in core design and manufacturing capability forever if their core business
> declines (to be clear, I'm talking about what might happen 4 or 8 years from now,
> not some imminent crash).
>
> What happens in the long term depends on economic forces (high volume tends to win)
> and on well-defended technical or legal obstacles (e.g. patents, software network
> effects). If x86 PC sales shrink significantly, while ARM-based products continue
> to boom, I'm not sure how Intel will maintain dominance.
By designing and manufacturing ARM cores?
This is surely what they are going to do if the market revenue gets large enough, and they fail to compete with x86.
> David Kanter (dkanter.delete@this.realworldtech.com) on January 29, 2013 11:51 pm wrote:
>
> > Honestly, the trend is away from standard ARM cores. Also, there's a lot of other IP that servers need
> > that isn't in the normal tablet/phone space, like high performance wired networking and PCI-E.
>
> Sure, there's work to do. Just as there was for Intel in the 1990s. But when
> the economic incentive is there - and I think Intel's margins on server cpu's are
> a pretty fat target - then many companies will do what it takes to solve those
> problems.
>
> This is exactly what Intel went through in the RISC vs x86 battle. x86 didn't have
> decent server software; but once they had good enough cheap hardware, Linux and
> WindowsNT came along to fix that. Pentium didn't have a sensible MP bus;
> Intel spent the money to develop the P6 bus for cheap/easy 4-way servers.
> x86 didn't have RAS features; Intel added them. Intel didn't have cores as good as
> DEC or HP; they hired good designers, borrowed a few ideas, and got the much
> more competitive P6.
>
> To make the situation even more worrying for Intel, it seems that PC sales - the
> source of their economic power - are now falling (8% YoY in the last Q IIRC)
> while the ARM business is booming. They may not be able to maintain a huge lead
> in core design and manufacturing capability forever if their core business
> declines (to be clear, I'm talking about what might happen 4 or 8 years from now,
> not some imminent crash).
>
> What happens in the long term depends on economic forces (high volume tends to win)
> and on well-defended technical or legal obstacles (e.g. patents, software network
> effects). If x86 PC sales shrink significantly, while ARM-based products continue
> to boom, I'm not sure how Intel will maintain dominance.
By designing and manufacturing ARM cores?
This is surely what they are going to do if the market revenue gets large enough, and they fail to compete with x86.